Windows XP wont continue setup after restart

[losin_it]

Reinstalling XP, just need a fresh start after too many unfriendly fingers infiltrated my pc with too much garbage and now it slow booting etc..  Anyway it boots from cd, loads files and restarts but then instead of continuing setup it starts back at the begining again. I'm stuck!  Anyone know whats going on here?

[Allan]

Boot to the XP CD, delete all partitions, recreate the system partition (and any others you want), format, and then try again. What happens?

[losin_it]

Ok, I posted the mesage late last night and went to bed and now it looks worse. My son who normaly fixes my computer probs. messed with it and now it's not booting for me, it keeps going back to this screen that says "AMERICAN MEGATRENDS" at the top, and I think it said a driver was missing then gave me the option of "ctrl, alt, del to restart. Befor it goes back to that it flashes some command optns. very quickly so I did that restart attempt several times so I could write down those command opts. Now after doing that it has stopped on that screen and also said "bank interleave requested but notenabled".....Warning.... Too many cold resetdue bios post. Systemmight be incorrectly overclocked."  "Press del. to resume", which I did and now it went into bios.

[losin_it]

PS:   My son is'nt here now so I cant ask him what he did but he has Windows 7 and I think he may have tried to load that and failed but my XP cd was back in the drive this morning. Anyway Im still in bios and Im not touching it pending advice.

[patio]

Power down the machine....remove the power plug.
Open the case and remove the CMOS battery located on the motherboard...about the size of a Dime.
Leave it out for 15 minutes and replace it.

Then power back up and see what happens...

PS. Your Son has been messing around in the BIOS which he should not do unless he is very proficient with PC's...

[patio]

PS: You do realise re-installing is going to wipe ALL your data...correct ?

[losin_it]

Ok, doing that now, and yes, I've backed up all important data.

[losin_it]

Ok I've done that and restarted without the cd in the drive. The "american megatrends" screen comes up and says...
press F9 for BBS Popup
press F12 for bios post flash
1 amd north bridge, rev F3
initializing usb controllers..done.
1792 MB ok + 256 MB share memory
usb device(s): 1 mouse
auto-detecting sats 1 device..ide hard disk:wdc w3200aajs-00b4a0 01.03a01
auto-detecting sata 2 device..atapi cdrom: lite-on dvdrw lh20a1l bl06
auto-detecting usb mass storage devices..
00 usbmass storage devices found and configured.

bank interleave requested but not enabled
a hyper transport link has failed.
cmos settings wrong
cmos date/time not set press "del" to run setup
press F2 to load default values and continue

[Allan]

I believe you need a new cmos battery for a start.

[losin_it]

heading out to get battery...

[losin_it]

Battery testing good, 3.1v, replaced it anyway, new battry at 3.2v. Same screen apears on startup without the win xp disc in the drive.

[losin_it]

Going to try booting from cd now and post results.

[Allan]

Okay. Now enter the bios and see if there is an option to reset to default settings. If so, do it, save & exit.

NOTE: I'm flying a little blind here because I don't know what changes were made in the bios, but at this point going back to default probably makes the most sense. You can also set the date and time while you're in the bios if you want to. Actually, you probably should.

[losin_it]

The last option on that screen that was up was to "press F2 to load default values" so I did that, I had already placed the cd in the drive and when I pressed F2 I supose reset the default values in the bios and auto restarted. It booted from cd, loaded files like normal and stopped at the partition option. On all my previous atempts I did not elect to delete the current partition (C:) in hopes that my other partitions may be left intact but at this point I dont care so I elected to delelete the current partition as advised earlier and its giving the option to install windows on the selected item, which is the unpartitioned space, or to create a partition on the unpartitioned space. So it seams normal up to here.

[losin_it]

I havent done anything else

[Allan]

Okay, so if I understand correctly everything seems to be okay, yes? Why aren't you proceeding?

[losin_it]

Had to take of other biz so I thought Id use that time to allow for coments incase there might have been some sugestion. Its been frustrating and I apreciate the help, and didnt want to get trigger happy and blowit.  So now its formatting C: partition which is the only partition at this point as I am sticking to basics until this problem is resolved. Ill recreate new partitions later.  Ill post results as soon as I get them.

[Allan]

Good deal. You're doing just fine. Looking forward to hearing good news

[losin_it]

The setup is continuing as its supposed to this time. I dint forsee any more problems thankfully, what a relief, so yes its good news and....thanks so much for the help!  You guys are the best!

[Allan]

Glad you got it sorted out.